The Irony of the Tea Party

I’ve got a new article up at the Huffington Post called The Irony of the Tea Party. It’s going to be interesting to watch the reaction. Hope you’ll read it & pass it on to a friend! Here’s an excerpt.

As the country gears up for the 2012 presidential election season it seems obvious it’s going to be ugly. When it’s all said and done billions will be spent trying to differentiate (i.e. mudsling, smear and annihilate), opposing candidates in order to win the support of the precious few who have not already picked a side. In the end we will have elected a new president from one of two parties which are really not that different in the first place. The worst part is the presidential election will bring more division, anger, resentment, and cynicism among the people I belong to — Christians. There will be blood. There is no way out. It’s happening. I think the best we can do is try and have a little fun with it.

So here goes the first of three installments comprising one evangelical Christian’s take on the three major players: Republicans, Democrats and Tea Party. Republicans and Democrats because they are the two major parties and Tea Party because they’re fun to watch!

First up: The Tea Party

The Tea Party has brought the subject of personal liberty to the forefront in American politics. Nearly every attempt to describe Tea Party demographics will reference anger and frustration with government infringement upon liberty and personal freedom as a bedrock principle for most Tea Party members. If you are a fan you call them colorful, if not you call them shrill, but if you cannot at least enjoy the wacky element — shrink-wrapped and caricature-ready — then you are taking them too seriously. Yet no movement gains this kind of political traction without hitting on a grain of truth resonating with a great many people. The Tea Party’s grain of truth seems to be the size of the federal government. No society can spend all they want on entitlements, infrastructure and national defense while simultaneously lowering taxes. Critiquing the size of government is a winning issue with many of our citizens.

However, the size of government is not the Tea Party’s most essential commitment. Their most essential commitment is to personal liberty as a universal good. Personal liberty underwrites the entire Tea Party agenda. Their most fundamental allegiance is to liberty as an absolute, and herein lies the difficulty. Liberty is most certainly a good, but when it is universalized it destroys itself. Liberty is only a virtue when held in tandem with the common good. Societies do not achieve liberty by pursuing liberty alone. Liberty is the byproduct of a just society. It is the pursuit of justice which ensures personal liberty, not the other way around. The pursuit of liberty without an equal commitment to the common good has a trajectory and momentum which is not trained toward democracy, but fascism. In a world of laissez-faire capitalism and absolute individual liberty, might is the only right — that’s fascism.

A strong commitment to the common good is the necessary counter-weight to personal liberty. The common good forces personal freedoms to be held in tension with the values of community and justice. No one can enjoy absolute liberty without undermining the fabric of a just society. Liberty is not an absolute. It must always be held in balance with the common good and the pursuit of social justice.

Justice is a non-starter with Tea Party folk. Glen Beck, a big fan of the movement, famously decried social justice as a Christian heresy. I don’t expect the plea for justice to be a big hit with the Tea Party patriots. Yet to ignore it, they must first jettison the closing line of the pledge of allegiance: “… with liberty and justice for all.” Liberty and justice are linked. Interestingly, the pledge was written by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy, who was a committed Christian socialist. The “justice” Bellamy had in mind was not trial by jury justice, but social justice: a commitment to the common good, social equality, and the solidarity of all humankind. Shouldn’t we all be fans of that?

The Christian’s first commitment is always to follow the teachings of Jesus, who was certainly concerned about the common good. Jesus told a story about the sheep and the goats in which he made it clear that social justice was the divider between those who were living truthfully, and those who were living a lie (Matt. 25). The folks he identifies with are those willing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the alien, care for the sick and all manner of behaviors which will not come anywhere close to making the Tea Party platform. While many Christians seem to have joined with the Tea Party movement, the rhetoric of absolute personal liberty seems to be at odds with the gospel Jesus taught. The Christian can wholeheartedly support the cause of personal liberty, but only while supporting the cause of the common good with equal measure.

As someone who studies conservatism and listens to many varying news outlets on both sides of the isle, you seem to be characterizing what YOU think the tea party is standing for. Or maybe your perception.

They do mention much about attacks on personal liberty, but only as the by-product of a bloated and out of control government that has made George Bush look like a penny pincher. We will never recover from 17 trillion (by the spring) of national debt. This is the gripe. Our great grandchildren will be paying out the wazoo for a healthcare bill that had very little to do with improving care. Conservatives are not innocent, but this administration is spending money at a mind-blowing pace. In less than 2 years, Obama administration has basically doubled the debt…depending on which numbers you look at.

Enter: the Tea Party

There will always be wack-jobs with any politcal base, but this is the reason the tea party exists. The attack on liberty arises when the government sees fit to take over anything they please at the expense of the taxpayer…See Obamacare. You'd have to be on LSD to think this will actually improve care and provide everyone with free care. This is just one example. The tea party objects to socialism because it conditions dependency. It creates generation after generation that looks to the government to supply its needs. (See Europe). This model does not work.

Compassion should be measured by the amount of people that don't have to be on welfare anymore because of the generosity of others, not by legislating hand-outs to everyone.